The mineral water brand Volvic invites you to the “Hydro Games”, where 6 content creators compete against each other on Twitch. But the action is not well received, because the group behind it is controversial.
What are the Hydro Games? The twitch event of the mineral water producer Volvic aims to draw attention to the topic of hydration. Teams of 6 streamers compete against each other in challenges over a period of 3 months.
Alerts should be displayed during the streams to remind participants to drink enough. Merch, gift subscriptions and Volvic fan packages await the winning communities. The first challenge “Twitch Feud” runs on March 30 (via Volvic).
Who’s in? A total of 5 Twitch streamers and one streamer participate:
But criticism of the event was voiced on Twitter. Fans are disappointed that “their” streamers are involved in something like this.
Twitch streamers like to use their reach to draw attention to important topics:
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The water business
What bothers people? Behind Volvic is the French group Danone, which with brands like Evian and Volvic is one of the largest bottlers of mineral water in the world – on this market they compete with the much-criticized Nestlé group.
Because the practice of skimming off “free” water at the source and selling it is controversial. Critics also fear that the water extraction will have a negative impact on the surrounding regions and water bodies will dry up (via euronews).
However, the group emphasizes that they are concerned about protecting the Volvic source, reducing the amount of withdrawal and water consumption (via Volvic).
The website behindthebrand confirms that Danone has made progress in recent years, but with a rating of 4/10 there is still room for improvement, especially in the area of water.
Criticism hailed on Twitter
How is that expressed? Despite these statements by Volvic, the reactions on Twitter are mostly negative. Under Volvic’s announcement it says, for example, that they are doing “greenwashing”: This means PR measures with which corporations want to give themselves a “green”, sustainable coat of paint without fighting the actual problems (via Twitter).
The participants don’t get off scot-free either. Negative comments accumulate under their own posts about the challenge: It is a pity that they entered into such a cooperation, there is still a lot of catching up to do to find out about cooperation partners.
Volvic responds to some of the critical voices and reiterates that they will only pump as much water as they are allowed to.
Are there also positive voices? Overall, there are rather few reactions and they are almost exclusively negative. One or the other can only gain something from the basic idea. A Twitter user writes that it is better to promote water than sugary sodas and energy drinks (via Twitter).
The topic is particularly piquant, since many content creators only distanced themselves from the liquid food YFood at the end of February after the food company Nestlé had sought a minority stake. Nestlé has been criticized for years. Fans would probably have wished for a similar attitude towards Danone.
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